Friday, 15 June 2007

The NZETC has just completed a project to digitise "Tuatara" a journal of biological science published by the University between 1947 and 1993. The 82 issues report on important New Zealand biological research and feature articles and illustrations on a variety of topics from botany and zoology to marine ecology and biodiversity in New Zealand.The full text of all the articles and all associated illustrations are now freely accessible and fully searchable as part of the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre online collection:

The "Tuatara" collection is fully integrated in the larger NZETC collection such that, for example, a "Tuatara" article on the "History of New Zealand Marine Biology" which mentions William Colenso contains a link to the NZETC topic page for Colenso and thus to additional relevant resources including the entry for Colenso in the "Nineteenth Century New Zealand Artists", other "Tuatara" articles which mention Colenso, and the full text of Colenso's own writing "Notes on the ancient Dog of the New Zealanders" (1877). The William Colenso page is here:http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/name-207684.html

We're also pleased to announce that the NZETC collection now includes direct links to content in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1868-1961 made available by the National Library. There are over 200 authors in the NZETC collection who also contributed articles to the Royal Society journals and those connections are now made visible and navigable for users. A good example is Dr Raymond Forster - a past Director of Otago Museum and spider expert - who wrote 3 articles for "Tuatara" and 5 for the Royal Society journals. Links to the full text of all 8 are available on his topic page http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/name-170492.html

One of the interesting connections we've noticed is a number people who wrote articles for the Royal Society journals and are also listed in Platts "Nineteenth Century New Zealand Artists" - William Colenso, Sven Berggren, and James Hector are three.